Pavlovian Influences
by shnickers
Summary: Hinata's innocent attempt at Pavlovian manipulation backfires when Kiba retaliates in a not-so-innocent way. KibaHina August '08 DateMe winner.


_Naruto and associated characters, place, paraphernalia, etc. are all the brainchild of one Kishimoto Masashi. No credit is taken where it is not due._

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Hinata peered around the corner of the market stall, white eyes wide with excitement. Various passersby looked just a second too long at the face brimming with shy, childlike anticipation. That is, until with a quiet incantation, veins bulged up around her eyes, now reflecting hard lines and intimidating intensity, whether intended or not. They quickly averted their eyes, quickening their pace as they passed.

Unaware of all else around her, she narrowed her eyes slightly, trying her best to locate her wayward teammate. She knew he liked to duck and weave through the crowded afternoon central street on the way to Team Eight's favorite training grounds with his constant furry companion. She also knew that he arrived at this spot around seven minutes after noon. It might seem strange that she knew so much, but… all that Naruto-watching had really improved her observation skills! And Kiba, while a self-proclaimed lover of adventure and excitement, rarely changed his routine.

After two long months of careful setup and execution, she was now ready to complete the final step in her… well, for lack of a better word, prank. Not that she was really the type to play pranks, unlike certain _other_ ninja. But ever since she had picked up that article in Hana's office, scanning the text while waiting for Kiba to show up, the words had clicked together in her head, and her master plan had bloomed seemingly right in front of her stunned eyes.

It was perfect. And very fitting.

She had taken a couple of days to perfect the most important part of the experiment: beef jerky. Hinata knew Kiba had an affinity for meat; she had seen him frequently gnawing most ecstatically on flavored dried beef, so she decided to cook up a batch.

Unfortunately, it was a little trickier than it seemed. She had some experience with baking pastries—her love for sugar was just about as passionate as Kiba's affinity for meat—so she figured all that was involved in the making of dried beef was, well, beef, and some spices.

Apparently, baking cinnamon rolls and making jerky were two very different culinary projects.

She didn't know that certain spices induced upchucking reflexes when paired in great quantities with slightly undercooked beef. Thankfully, she had gotten a container to Hanabi in time. (Hinata really owed her for being such a willing test subject.) Three disastrous attempts later successively took her Neji-niisan, head chef, and eldest auntie out of action for two arduous, nauseating hours. The remaining occupants were forced to seek shelter outside of the compound.

In the end, she bought a few packets from the snack stall, and headed on her merry way. After all, home-cooked was definitely not one of the required parts of her project.

Securing the beef, it turned out, was the easy part. It had taken her days to work up her nerves and calm herself enough so as to not appear too suspicious.

The first attempt had been disastrous. She had stuttered her way over to Kiba, stumbled in the process, and forced him to catch her by the shoulders to avoid a head-on collision. Hinata had stuck her hand into her jacket pocket to grab the jerky and had instantly realized that perhaps thrusting it into her coat pocket was not the best way to transport meat—sticky meat, that was now linty sticky meat.

She had decided to forgo that attempt and try another day.

During the second attempt, Akamaru had somehow gotten wind of her carefully enclosed pocket and eagerly ripped the beef jerky out of its protective environment to run streaming down the street. He was just so big and as quick of an eater as Kiba, that by the time Hinata and Kiba had caught up to Akamaru, the only evidence left of the jerky was the pepper dotting his mouth.

Five wibbles and wobbles later, she had finally gotten the routine down pat. She would smile, greet him—_"Hello, Kiba-kun"_—and wordlessly thrust a wrapped piece of jerky at him. He, in turn, would automatically inhale and drool helplessly, before demolishing the meat in a matter of seconds.

Hinata had worried that because of all her failures and clumsy tactics, her subject had become aware of the experiment. Thankfully, Kiba had been caught in one of his periods of oblivious obtuseness, which came and went, usually staying longer than not. But a month of random acts of beef jerky kindness had not clued Kiba into any lurking motive—not that Hinata would usually have one, besides the kindness, of course.

Twenty meetings, twenty carefully staged greetings, and thirty-seven pieces of beef jerky later, Hinata was ready to call in the results of her ingenious, though unoriginal, experiment. In just three more minutes, she was going to watch as her oblivious teammate and friend drooled rivers at the sight and sound of her.

She could hardly wait.

Her chakra-advanced sight zoomed in on and pinpointed a figure in the far distance. Two figures, actually, as was expected. They were ambling along merrily, ignorant of what was to come. She smiled giddily, eyes soft and fingers twitching rapidly against the wooden post.

.

..

...

..

.

Kiba swerved in and out of pedestrians, market stalls, and various cart drivers, confidently and agilely avoiding each possible accident at the last second. He grinned, hearing curses and angry screaming aimed in his direction and simply sped up, becoming even more reckless as he wove through the lunchtime shoppers of Konoha's bustling market street. It wasn't until he was passing by a melon stand that he picked up a familiar scent buried within an entrapment of grease, sweat, and musky bodies; he instantly perked up and skidded to a stop, centimeters away from a cart-and-donkey driver, who swerved crazily out of the way while flashing his middle finger. Kiba ignored the half-crazed driver in favor of a pair of sandals peeking out from around the apple stand. He dashed over, coming to a stop in front of the startled girl.

And there, amidst smelly children and heavily perfumed teenage girls, was a breath of light floral and air. She smiled at him sweetly. "Hello, Kiba-kun."

He grinned and opened his mouth in reply when an immense flood of drool dribbled out of his mouth and down his chin.

Success!

Hinata's first instinct was to giggle and gently tease her friend, but instead she froze, horrified. She only just then realized how embarrassing it would be for this experiment to take place in such a crowded environment. Even though her friend was just about as boisterous and outgoing as could be didn't mean that he was impermeable. Judging from the stunned, wide-eyed look on Kiba's face, the embarrassment would be setting in right about… now.

The Inuzuka clan mark seamlessly blended right into the ripe tomato of his skin as he swiped his arm across his lower face. At the sight of that blindingly red, _cute_ blush, Hinata snapped out of her stupor and quickly hurried over to him, gripping him by his other wrist and dragging him over to a less-frequented side street. He followed wordlessly, sleeve still protectively shielding his mouth, lest the floods began anew.

As soon as she had him in her protective custody, he turned on her, glaring. Sixteen years of mischief had made him privy to that initial gleam of trickery in her eyes at his embarrassing public performance. "What…"—he was careful to speak out of the very corner of his mouth—"…did you do to me?"

Hinata wrung her hands nervously and cringed as she felt his dark eyes drilling her into the ground. "I… I'm so sorry! I-I didn't mean to… I wasn't… I-I'm so sorry!" Bent over at the waist, she tensed as his pant-clad legs loomed closer in her restricted view.

"Whatever it was, it was fantastic!"

She lifted her head in surprise, mouth dropping into a small 'o'. "Fan…tastic?"

"Yeah. I mean, it couldn't have been a genjutsu, because I definitely would have smelled the chakra use. What kind of technique was that?" His eyes were crinkled and friendly, smiling at her in obvious admiration.

After an eternity of blinking, her neurons resumed fire. "Well…" she began, eyes lighting up with excitement. "I found this article on Hana-san's desk the other day… I wanted to try the experiment, and since it was with dogs… w-well, I thought of you and…"

"Experiment?" He frowned. "Dogs?"

She nodded eagerly. "I-it was about… how dogs can be taught to behave in certain ways…"

"Will I drool like this forever?" he butted in.

"Um, no…" _I don't think? __Oh, I__ hope not… _She smiled sweetly, the corner of her mouth nervously twitching.

He guided her back to the street, gathering the rest of the idea from his shy companion as she explained the original experiment. However, as soon as he stepped back among the throngs of people, a flash of orange and black zipped in from the right and stabbed a finger at his chest. "Hey, Dog-boy!"

Kiba glared at the offending finger before slapping it away. His elation had turned to pure and simple annoyance in the space of a millisecond. Only one person was skilled enough to do that.

"Naruto."

"Man, was that hilarious! I can't believe you _droooooled_ at the sight of Hinata-chan! Maybe I should start calling you 'Dog' instead of 'Dog-boy'!" The blonde grinned smugly at Kiba, oblivious to the stuttering heap-of-a-girl shyly peeking out at him from behind Kiba's arm.

"So," continued Naruto, mistaking the renewed red flush on Kiba's cheeks for embarrassment, "are you and Hinata-chan like _this?"_ He wiggled his pinky cheekily. "Or does she not like dog-stink?"

Hinata gasped, torn between continuing to hide behind Kiba and jumping away to assure Naruto that they were indeed _not_ an item.

That simple, quiet sucking in of air gave Kiba the motivation and idea for killing two birds with one stone. _After all, one good prank deserves another!_

He snaked an arm around Hinata's waist and half-dragged her to press flush against his chest. Before she could even react—a blush was definitely forthcoming—Kiba lowered his head to brush noses, growling her name huskily. Her mouth dropped open at the unusually sensual tone.

It had definitely been his intention to stop the theatrics right at that moment and back off, just playing around enough to startle her and Naruto, but the press of her body against his and one glimpse of an enticing pink tongue paved the road to hell.

Kiba instantly pressed his lips to hers and dipped his tongue briefly inside her still open mouth to catch the bittersweet tang of strawberries before proceeding to thoroughly ravish her in front of the shell-shocked blonde.

Naruto blinked slowly to ensure his sight was intact—all those blows from Sakura-chan could potentially unscrew something one of these days—before shaking his head and muttering, "Guess that answers that question." He hightailed it out of there, weirded out by the sight of innocent, little Hinata-chan exchanging saliva with the dog-nin; also, he was pretty sure that afterwards there would be finger-pointing, and due to past experience, he knew the blame (and fists) would eventually fall upon him. Screw that. A bowl of extra-large pork ramen was bellowing his name. Or was that Sakura-chan…?

Hinata blinked numbly after Kiba finally released her, stumbling backwards to bump into a little, old woman. When the decidedly not so sweet granny shoved her aside with a squeaky curse on her ancestors, she turned to the wall, lethargically bobbing her head and apologizing repeatedly, though dazedly. Kiba watched in satisfied amusement as she then proceeded to trip over her own feet and totter back into the old woman, who graciously head-butted her back over to him, snarling under her breath about _lewd_ behavior and _oh, the state of morals these days_.

He waited impatiently for her to recover her senses, and then grinned as she half-turned away from him, the tips of her ears bright red. "I-I-I… y-y-you…" she attempted, failing miserably as she hid her heated face behind her jacket sleeve.

Genuinely concerned, he tugged her arm away from her eyes. "Hey. Are you okay?"

She didn't answer.

"Hinata. C'mon, answer me, _pleeeease?_" he drew out in a playful whine, one that never failed to cause a smile to bloom on her pale features, especially when armed with his mastered puppy-dog eye routine.

She pouted unhappily, unsuccessfully repressing a smile. "But Kiba-kun, y-you… and I-I… in front of…!"

"What? The little old lady? Don't think she minded." He purposefully ignored the crone's screeching disagreement two stalls away as well as the gigantic polka-dotted purple elephant Hinata toted around in her heart.

She was quiet, staring at her sandaled feet. "I like Na—"

"Well, anyways, I was just trying to show you that the tables have turned. Guess even you're not immune to this, uh, classical conditioner!" He hoped that was right.

Hinata jerked her head back up to stare at him. She had to desperately fake a cough in her right hand to mask the strained giggles bubbling up inside. When she saw the offended look on his boyish face, she sighed. Ugh. She just couldn't hold a darn grudge to support any attempted indignation whatsoever. Especially with Kiba.

"Besides, if you like Naruto so much—" Here he ignored her widened eyes and gestures indicating he should lower his volume, "—then why didn't you even notice that he left?"

"Eh?" Hinata glanced around, noticing that the hyperactive ninja was nowhere in sight. "Oh." She turned back to him, attempting to stab her finger at his chest, but too embarrassed to actually touch him; she ended up weakly poking her finger somewhere in his near vicinity. "Because you…!"

"Me?" His smile was smug. And adorable… He shifted closer, and the spell was broken.

"Don't…!"

Kiba was touching her again, lightly pressing up against her. How did he invade her bubble with so little ease and even less reluctance? Even though there were concerns and problems and frustrations flying around in her jumbled head, her body knew what to do when her mind failed her; she instantly shut her eyes and puckered her lips when his mouth once again lowered.

Her eyes snapped open with shock as she registered a wet motion against the tip of her nose. She stared at Kiba, who was nonchalantly tugging on a loose thread on his sleeve. "Did… did you just, um, l-l-lick me?"

His only response was to offer her a mischievous grin. "See? Told ya! Maybe I'm droolin' at you, but _you're_ puckerin' up for _me_!" Before she had a chance to respond in any way, he whistled to Akamaru, who jumped to attention after having grudgingly resigned himself to a nap under the shade of a generously sized tree. Leaping on his back, Kiba offered her a playful wink before the pair dashed off to their previous destination.

Hinata watched the pair disappear into the crowd, feeling as if the world had swallowed her up and spit her into some strange alternate version of her life. She was Hyuuga Hinata! She certainly did _not_ go around causing boys to drool and subsequently making out with them in public! And she certainly _never_ let Naruto off of her radar! Never!

Deciding that this day was some kind of strange karma for something she may or may not have done in another life—probably as a _criminal _or a _murderer_—she headed home, cringing every time a finger pointed in her general direction.

Even with all of the chaos and strangeness, Hinata felt a warmth encompass her unlike any other. She allowed a smile—just the tiniest of dimples—to grace her face as she remembered how it felt to press up against a boy who _wanted_ her and kissed her so _hungrily._ Her face went pink as she fanned her long hair behind her shoulders, blaming the sweltering summer heat for her sudden bout of flushing.

She sighed, letting her hands drop back down. As… nice as the experience had been, it would probably be a few days—months—years, before she could meet Kiba again.

Two hours later, as she was heading over to the public baths for a much-needed soak, Hyuuga Hinata literally ran into Inuzuka Kiba.

He drooled. She puckered.

_el fin._

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**Author's Note: **

Okay. So I saw this prompt and freaked out. I freaking love KibaHina. It didn't take too long for an idea to pop into my head, and, of course, being the psychology freak I am, it happened to be good ol' Pavlov's classical conditioning.

If you have never taken a general psych class, forgot said general psych class, and/or just don't give a damn about life, here's Mr. Ivan Pavlov's original experiment in classical conditioning:

Sentient beings can be taught to associate normal bodily reactions with uncommon stimuli. In other words, if you try long enough, you can teach a dog to drool at the sound of a bell by ringing the bell before letting him (or her) get a whiff of something nummy. Once the dog associates the sound of the bell with treaty treats, you can make him drool without even introducing the smell of the food. Or in the case of my high school IB psychology course, you can teach a person to flinch when dinging a water glass with a spoon. Ding water glass, blow air into their eye using a straw, flinch/blink. Repeat 50 times. Very useful, huh? Could stop serial killers in their tracks. Of course you would have to carry around a water glass and a spoon everywhere you go, oh, and first condition the would-be serial killers, and… yeah. (Or in reality, you just cause someone to laugh hysterically at you and ruin your experiment because pursed lips around a straw make you "look like a fish.")

If that explanation was just not enough (it probably wasn't), wiki it like a normal person.

Comments are always appreciated!


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